


Steaming Letters

by raelee514



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Letters, M/M, Mention of Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-28
Updated: 2017-09-28
Packaged: 2019-01-06 09:25:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12208437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raelee514/pseuds/raelee514
Summary: Couldn't write so went into my file of half-finished snippets/random ideas/and sometimes awful ones and this one spoke to me.  So fiddled with it a bit here and there and figured why not post it.The idea was Jimmy wrote Thomas letters but never sent them:Alice couldn’t let it go.  She just couldn’t because it was a strange thing for a man to do.  Write letters, address them and then never mail them. But reread them.  He reread them, and he wrote more of them -- seemed to be writing them all the time.  And he would dodge or flat out yell at her if she tried to get him to talk about it.





	Steaming Letters

**Author's Note:**

> Eep. Should have mentioned there is a blunt mention of Thomas' suicide attempt.

Alice Finch unlocked the door and walked into Jimmy Kent’s small flat. She dropped the box of groceries on his counter. She was going to surprise him with a small dinner, and they needed to talk about their engagement. But it wasn’t her real reason for being in his flat before he returned from his job at the pub. No, she was here to see about something else altogether. She knew he never took them to work with him. Though for some reason they were almost always on his person. It was an oddity about him. Fanny kept telling her not to fuss about it. But Alice couldn’t let it go. She just couldn’t because it was a strange thing for a man to do. Write letters, address them and then never mail them. But reread them. He reread them, and he wrote more of them -- seemed to be writing them all the time. And he would dodge or flat out yell at her if she tried to get him to talk about it. 

She went into his bedroom and blushed as she looked at the bed. They had done all sorts of things she never could’ve expected a man and woman could do. But she was a quick learner, and she was smart. They were quite good at doing the things that made her cheeks heat and turn red. It was fun, and that was something she never been told it could be. 

This was why she had to know what was in the letters. She cared about him, she loved him, and she needed to know everything. A marriage wouldn’t survive without honesty her mother was always saying. But Jimmy wouldn’t share it, and so she would take it without his knowledge. If she knew what they were, she would worry less. She was sure of it. She went to the closet and found the little satchel he kept them in. He’d bought it special and that only heightened her curiosity. Even though she knew he wished her to ignore it and pretend it didn’t exist. But she could only give him that if she knew. She reached in and pulled out a handful of them. 

Five in all. She pulled out five envelopes. She stood up with them in her hand and walked back into the kitchen and put on the kettle. She would steam them open. It was how he did it. He steamed them open and resealed them. She’d spied him doing it more than once when she surprised him with a visit throughout the years they’ve known each other. 

She sat down and looked at the face of the envelopes. Seeing the different dates. She put them in chronological order to read. Then she picked up the first one and read the name. 

_Thomas Barrow_

Instantly she frowned. Thomas? Thomas? She knew that name, didn’t she? Didn’t he mention an old mate Thomas? Yes, she was sure of it. In fact, she was sure he’d mentioned a Thomas just a few days ago when he was playing Pontoon with her brother Charlie. Charlie liked to think he was a good card player and Jimmy did as well. Jimmy won easily and grinned cheekily and told them. “Thomas taught me a few tricks, I’m unbeatable at this. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” 

It was offhand, and she hadn’t thought much of it. The kettle started whistling, and she got up with the letter. Other memories of the name Thomas rolling off of Jimmy’s tongue springing to mind: Thomas was probably disgusted by something in the paper — that hadn’t been spoken to anyone directly. Jimmy had been just reading the paper. Had she asked who Thomas was? Had he answered? She couldn’t remember, but little things kept coming to her mind now. Yes, the name Thomas had often been spoken, yet she had no idea who the man was…

Except his name was on the letters. 

She held up the envelope to the steam, and it wrinkled up. She carefully opened it and could tell it’d been open before. It was easy to peel away the paper and get at the letter within. Alice took a deep breath and unfolded the paper. 

_Thomas,_

_I think I manage a week, a week before I found myself thinking about you all the time. I can never get you out of my mind. I tell myself it’s a what if. I tell my self it is like Anstruther. The memory of being in her bed was better than being in it. I missed the attention, so I missed her bed. I told myself it is like that with you — you gave me attention. Intense attention. You love me, you love me so easily and freely._

_I’ve never understood why and it’s not the man thing… I get that, better than I ever let you know, better than I should know. No, I’ll never get why you liked me. I was nothing, I am nothing, Thomas. I’m just a flirt and gambler._

_I gave up service. I’ve told you before but… I couldn’t do it anymore. Listening to people no better than me. The stupid part is I got a job behind a bar. So I’m still serving those arseholes but I can call them that to my boss. No stuffy Carson, looking down his nose and thinking he’s better because he’s older. Or whatever daft thing is in Carson’s head…_

_He was cruel to you sometimes, and I watched it hurt you. I always wanted to ask why it did? You didn’t care about him? Did you? You act tougher than you are, I know that — I saw that after the fair. You act like you don’t care, but you do, I saw that every time you looked at me._

_Why did you love me? God, do you still? I want that, I want that — and that’s wrong of me. Isn’t it. To wish you to pine forever. I won’t…_

_You’ll never see._

_I slept with a man. Last night. He was tall and smoked. He looked nothing like you, but it was all about you. I called him your name, and he punched me. I would’ve too and luckily he couldn’t bloody punch. You could punch, I bet, you were never a sissy or unable to do sport — why did I act like you were for so long._

_I’m so stupid. You can’t still love me. You never did it was lust, wasn’t it? Right Thomas? I miss you. I miss talking with you. Those were the best conversations of my life. I keep trying to replicate it._

_I can’t stand stupid people. I can’t just flirt with some girl like Ivy anymore. I have to be able to hold a conversation. I look for male mates, people I can talk with and not just to… Charlie is smart, but he’s not — clever. He doesn’t… No one understands why I try to get our patrons secrets. But secrets are good, you know that — I have many of Anstruther’s. Funny how I never wanted more of yours — but I don’t need your secrets because I know you._

_I think I …_

_There is a pretty girl named Alice. She works at the flower shop and comes into the pub. She’s different than most girls. She says what she thinks. I’d think you’d like her Thomas. Her eyes are gray, but they aren’t like yours._

__

Alice took a deep breath and folded the letter to put it back in the envelope. She walked to the table and picked up another. It was dated a month later she noted it and took a shaky breath. Her fingers shook, and she was afraid she might tear the envelope but got it open. She felt odd and wondered if she should keep going, but that meant she would have to think about what she read. Alice wasn’t sure if she could — 

She opened the second. 

_Thomas,_

_Alice and I had a stupid fight._

_I could end it with her. Easily. I wouldn’t miss her. Or at least not like this, not like how I miss you. Downton Abbey feels like a storybook to me. Am I even remembering it right? But then I know I do because I remember my constant fear at being around you and how much I craved it. Craved it so much I had to run from it…_

_I courted Ivy. Ivy. Dull Ivy whose only saving grace was her pretty face. I never liked her, not like that, she was more suited to Alfred than me. I need more from a person than a face. You. You were the best relationship of my life, and we understood each other — I don’t think. I can’t replicate it. I try and try._

_But I ran from you, didn’t I. I was a fool and wrote Anstruther. I practically invited her to the house myself. I let her come in, and I walked into her room. I wanted you to stop me. Do you remember… I said, “I know you think I’m being stupid.”_

_Why didn’t you say that I was? Why didn’t you say, yes, don’t do this? Why did I think I would stop if you asked? Why didn’t you ask and why didn’t I just ignore her? Why?_

_Why are you so under my skin, Thomas. I feel I might go mad from thinking about you. I should… I should write you a real letter. It’s has been over a year. You probably think I hated you… God, don’t think that Thomas. Just think I’m rubbish at friendship, I’m rubbish at writing._

_I’m rubbish, right? I told you I wasn’t much for writing. I told you to be happy —_

_Are you? Can you be? You deserve it, to be loved the way you loved me. It was… Alice thinks she loves me, but I don’t believe she does — she doesn’t look at me like you did. But maybe you love me more than her. Maybe you just love me in a different way a better way…_

_I don’t love her. But… I’m gonna keep running, aren’t I?_

__

Alice put the letter back together. Her mouth was dry, so she made herself tea and refilled the kettle. Putting it back on and she started cutting the vegetables for their dinner. She kept thinking about meeting Jimmy and how he said something sweet about her eyes. No one ever complimented her eyes. They were the color of dishwater her mother would say. But Jimmy had and now…

She looked at the table at the three other letters, and she remembered there were a quite a bit more still in the satchel in the closet. She walked over and grabbed the third. She put it over the steam and lowered the heat on the kettle. She opened it slowly and grabbed a chair to sit in. Her legs felt shaky, and she was terrified of what she might see this time. 

_Thomas,_

_The dreams. I try not to think about them much. But there is this one, it won’t stop, and I want it to stop. Or I don’t. I’m afraid to write it down, what if that stops it. But I can’t… It keeps coming and coming. I keep finding myself in a bed underneath you. Your lips on me, your hands on me, in ways no other has ever…_

_The men. They don’t touch me the way you do my dreams. And I know, I know that you would touch me differently. It’s always there in your eyes, and I can’t forget your eyes — or I do. I’m so afraid I’m remembering wrong. I try to focus, I try to think about everything. Your freckles, the scar on your hand, I want to remember it right. I pray you aren’t fading. I dream of you touching me, and I smell smoke. I wake up sure your smoking right next to me, sometimes, it’s like I feel you there._

_Do you dream of me? Did you?_

_I wake up and have to take care of myself, this dream more than any other it’s under my skin and in my bones. It’s us, laughing and scheming. It’s us outside smoking, and there is a moon. You remember that night with the full moon, and we told werewolf stories and scared Daisy. Later outside I grabbed your hand, I grabbed your hand that night…_

_That’s how the dream starts. Because in the dream I never let go._

_Why don’t I feel that for Alice, for anyone else that is … acceptable?_

__

Alice tucked the letter back together and drank her cold tea. She went back to the vegetables and started up a few pots. She focused on the task of readying their dinner. Putting the meat in the oven and then she picked up the fourth letter. Her brain felt too full, but she wasn’t going to stop now. She told herself she read every word of the ones she pulled out of the bag. 

She noticed the date on on the fourth was just last week. Her eyes went to the small diamond on her finger. She closed her eyes for a minute. She held the letter over the steam coming from the pot of stew she had boiling. Alice opened it up and held her breath. 

_Thomas,_

_I didn’t do it consciously._

_I didn’t realize it until she exclaimed the date out loud, professing it as the best day of her life. She can be quite dramatic, Alice. It’s the one thing she has in common with someone like Ivy. Maybe it’s a woman thing, maybe it isn’t — she’s quite different than most, Alice. I think I think even you may like her._

_Or not. You’d probably hate her, but I think you’d like her all the same. She’s not as smart as you but then I think maybe you were too smart for your own good Thomas — you got so stupid sometimes. I… I wish sometimes Alfred never walked in…_

_I don’t know what I would’ve done, and it may not have been different. But why did he have to muddle in?_

_And I didn’t mean to do it. To propose to her on the day I left you. Two years now. Two years of me unable to stop thinking about you and doing nothing about it but write these…_

_I don’t know what to call them but letters. I even address them, but I’m too big of a coward to mail them. I could never mail them. I…_

_I’m doing it. I’m going to settle down. It’s someday for me, Thomas. I asked Alice because she’s as clever as I’m going to find. She’s got some spark, and I do love her, I think. In a way. It’s not all-encompassing, it’s not… dangerous. It’s not…_

_It’s allowed the light.  
I do like women. _

_I do wish you, and I had… that I’d let myself be with you instead of strange men who could never do._

_I wish I hadn’t done it on this date.  
But maybe it fits. I’m running further away from you. _

__

Alice hurried to the table and grabbed the next letter. She realized then and wondered how she hadn’t before that it was dated today. Today. She went to the kettle and put it back on high. This one had never been opened and resealed by Jimmy before. She had to be more careful, and her hands were shaking. She wasn’t even sure why she was going to read it. She knew all she needed to know, doesn’t she? Doesn’t she? One more didn't matter she knew too much already. Her hands shook and she tried to stop herself. But she opened the last letter and unfolded it. She looked at Jimmy’s handwriting and wished it was messier. 

But it was clear. 

It was clear. 

_Thomas,_

_I can’t breathe. I’ve made a terrible mistake. I’ve thought about you more since I asked her to marry me than I have before — I didn’t think it possible. I think of you every day as it is, but it’s more, and it’s got my heart pounding. I want to see you. I need to see you. I’ve been tempted to mail them. All of them. All 142 of these letters. I write more and more, and the longer we're apart, the more I write. I went months before I did. But now, now I want to keep writing but worse. I want you to read it. I need you too…_

_I don’t think I can do this to her._  
_I don’t think I can do this to me._  
_I love you. I love you. You. I love you Thomas, and I’ve never told you. I should tell you. I am a horrible man, a liar, a gambler and a thief…_

_I stole so much from you when I took your heart. And never meant to, why did you fall in love with me Thomas? I never deserved it._

_I love you. I don’t know what to do, and it’s been so long. It’s too late. You must have forgotten me. Or rather hate me, you must hate me by now, don’t you Thomas. The man who claimed to care, to be your friend, the one you never heard from again._

__

Alice gasped out, a sob breaking out and she hurriedly put the letter back into its envelope. She grabbed them all and hurried back to the satchel and stuffed them into it. She stood up and went to the mirror in the room and looked at herself in it. She looked at her pale eyes and her dark hair, and she wondered what Thomas looked like… She wondered who he was, what he was? She never. She heard a bit here and there. But she never considered it. She never thought it. Men. 

Her fiancé was in love with another man, and this man may love him too. This wasn’t a problem she was meant to face, that wasn’t — it was illegal. Jimmy has done illegal and dangerous things and his heart. His heart was taken, she suspected it, and it was why. It was the real reason why he was being such a sod about anything to do with the wedding.

Thomas. 

Alice shook her head. No. They were engaged. They were getting married. She would forget. It was best forgotten. She’d forget it. She would forget. She would forget she read the letters, and she would forget Thomas Barrow. 

And she did for a time. Until....

“Did you hear?” Fanny asked as she cut flower stems.

“What?”

“That was Mr. Morris’ Valet that was just here, and he said there is a rumor the Under Butler — who has an Under Butler? Anyway, there is a rumor that the Under Butler of Downton Abbey slit his wrists.”

“What?” Alice's eyes widened. “Oh my God, is he alive?”

“I don’t know. But how awful! It's horrifying."

“Why would anyone do that? That’s so wrong?” Alice shook her head. 

“What’s so wrong?” Jimmy walked in, and Alice smiled hello. 

“The Under Butler at Downton Abbey slit his wrists,” Fanny said in a hushed whisper. “Isn’t it horrible?”

Alice was nodding along with her but realized Jimmy’s reaction wasn’t right. He looked white, he looked really white, and he staggered backward. She moved quickly, but when she grabbed his hands, she wasn’t strong enough to stop him hitting the counter behind him hard and at a bad angle. But he barely grimaced as he whacked his hip and he just turned and put his hands on the counter bent over like it was hard to stand.

“Jimmy?”

“Say it again, say it again,” Jimmy spun around and yelled at Fanny.

“What?”

“Who, who slit their wrists?”

“The Under Butler of Downton Abbey.”

“No, no… is he, is he alive?” Jimmy’s voice was wrecked. 

“I think so.”

“You think, I gotta, I gotta…” Jimmy was moving toward the shop's phone, and he picked it up. “Downton Abbey, Mr. Carson,” he spat out to the operator. 

“Jimmy?” Alice reached out touch his shoulder, but he shrugged her off. She heard a gruff voice on the other end of the line. 

“This is Mr. Carson.”

Jimmy opened his mouth but nothing came out and Alice thought he was going to hang up, but then he spoke. His voice barely above a whisper, “Is he alive?" 

“Who is this?” Mr. Carson said. 

“Wait, Mr. Carson, it’s Jimmy -James. It’s James Kent. Is he okay, is Thomas okay, just tell me, please.” 

“James? How do you know, never mind that. He’s fine.”

“Fine?” Jimmy breathed into the phone. “He tried to.... Can I talk with him?”

“No,” the voice boomed. “He is resting, as he has INFLUENZA.”

“I want to talk with him,” Jimmy repeated. 

“James, I don’t know what you heard, but you are no longer part of the Downton household, goodbye.”

“Wait…” Jimmy cried out, and then he shook his head. “I have to go. I have to go…” 

“Jimmy,” Alice reached out and grabbed his arm. “No.”

He looked at her, and she saw something wild and terrified in his eyes. She shook her head at him. 

“No, I have to Alice, I have to,” he pulled away from her. He gave her no choice. She watched him walk away, and her heart thudded in her chest. 

“What was that?” Fanny asked. 

“Did he say, Thomas?” 

“I think so.”

“Oh,” Alice breathed out. “I might never see him again.” 

“Don’t be daft.”

But she wasn’t daft, and three months later a letter arrived. She picked up it up happy to have post, wondering who it might be and then her world crumbled down. 

He mailed her a letter.

He was gone, and there was no word. Everyone had expected her to be hysterical and angry. But she wasn’t because when she thought about Jimmy's silence, all she could think about was all the unsent letters. No contact was strangely giving her hope. He wouldn’t mail anything if he didn’t wish to say goodbye. 

She cried before she opened it. She broke down in the flower shop, and Fanny was right there and mumbling things about how a letter might be good news. And all Alice could do was laugh a bit through the tears. 

She opened it later. Much later. 

 

_Alice._

_I’ve taken a job in York to be closer… I need to be near Downton Abbey. I can’t explain why and believe me you do not want to know. I won’t be returning to London. You once asked me if I was happy and I know you noticed I never answered… You looked so sad, and it would’ve been easy to lie. But I didn’t, and since that night I thought you knew._

_You knew I loved someone else._

_I guess I wanted you to know you were right. Why you put up with that, I will never know? You loved me, and I do love you in a way, but it’s not… I’m not worth the love you gave me. You’re beautiful and clever and will find someone who looks at you like you are everything._

_You never looked at me like that either. I’m making excuses to make myself feel less of a bastard. And I am that… Always thought it but now I know the full measure of it. I know my cruelty. Yet, I am still loved and — they are foolish for it I think._

_I have to earn trust. I have to prove I'm not leaving. I have to give — them everything. And to start, I needed to write this letter and close off our connection and not let you have hope. I left… I left them with no hope by not writing. I fear not writing you might give you hope. You deserve a goodbye._

_I am saying goodbye. And allowing them to read it._

_Goodbye, Alice._

Alice wiped her tears. It wasn't surprising, but that didn't dull the pain. She looked at the last line and thought it was fair Thomas Barrow got to read her letter. After all, she read his.


End file.
